An Exercise in Portraiture

Several people have commented to me on my lack of Moab-blogging. I promise, it's coming. The writing is not coming to me as nicely as usual, and that coupled with a malfunctioning memory card reader, the post just hasn't happened yet. But stay tuned. I promise, it's coming.

Before we went to Moab, I had my hair cut for the first time in over a year. Chris has been wanting me to grow out my hair ever since we got married and this was the first time I've been consistently willing long enough for it to actually grow.

But, I have stick-straight hair. It's very healthy, and the color is great, but it's boring. No wave, no curl whatsoever. I finally mustered up the desire and, thanks to Christopher, the fundage to get a real hair cut. This is the best picture I have of my new style, taken by yours truly on my cell phone so I could send it to Chris while he was at work.


Layers in the front, trimmed nice and even in the back. Still super easy and yet not quite so boring.

Here is another self-portrait. Chris has generally been my belly photographer for pregnancy shots. I always get overly self-conscious about how my face/hair looks in those pictures and thus never like any of them, much to the annoyance of all involved. So, I attempted one myself while no one else, including the camera, could see my face.


I took the girls out to run errands yesterday and I had no less than four or five people comment on my belly...apparently I actually look pregnant now. It's nice to have those reminders because really, sometimes I still just feel enormously fat. Probably because I worked so hard to get skinny right before I got pregnant. :(

Anyway. I'm 24 weeks now, almost 25. I'm just waiting for the third trimester to kick in so I can finally feel like we've gotten somewhere. It still just seems like I've been pregnant forever and still have forever to go!

One of the errands we ran yesterday was Megan's 18-month checkup. She weighs 25 lbs. 10 oz. (only three pounds less than Jane) and is 31 inches tall. That puts her dead average on height and still a little higher on weight, but not anything to be worried about.

Funny thing. The doctor did stay it's a bit unusual for her to not really be talking yet (she only has maybe six words that have meaning, and those aren't all fully intelligible). She seems to understand most of what we say to her, though, so no cause for concern yet. He said that most likely, she has an older sibling who does a lot of the talking for her.

See? It's not just me that thinks Jane talks a lot!

The most exciting thing about Megan being 18 months old is that she finally finally finally gets to go into nursery! HOORAY!! We got her all dressed up Sunday morning and I wanted to take a picture of this week's milestone, but she was quite opposed.


Until Jane stepped in to help.


Then she got the idea.


Megan has often been with me in the past when I've dropped Jane off at nursery and generally gets rather upset when she has to leave with me afterward. Chris and I both dropped her and Jane off on Sunday. I closed the door and looked back through the window to see what Megan would do. She looked at me for just a second and you could watch the realization in her face that she got to stay. Her face broke out in a huge grin and she took off toward the toys. Priceless.

And yes, she still has her cast. It actually comes off tomorrow. I'm pretty excited. She will finally get to have a real bath again. And we can avoid moments like this:


Yeah, her arm is stuck. She couldn't get it out because of the cast. Don't worry, though. I didn't stop to take a picture until about the eighth time she'd done it. I figured if she hadn't learned by then, she could wait long enough for me to get the camera.

I'll blog Moab tomorrow, or maybe even later tonight. For now, I'm off to clean my bathroom mirror.